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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Khoresht e Alu

I've probably mis-spelled the title of the post, but I copied it from a friend's recipe, a recipe she copied down for me some twenty or more years ago.

I had lost the recipe, and discovered it hiding between the pages of a cookbook a few months ago, and tonight I decided to try making it again.

It's a Persian chicken stew with golden prunes: one of my main memories of it from decades back was a frantic trip to a shop in Washington DC which claimed to sell Iranian foods, and was only open for a few more minutes than it would take to drive there from the suburbs. We made it that day, and the food was good enough I asked for the recipe: but I annotated the recipe with "dried apricots?" next to the golden prunes.

Needless to say, here in the wilds of the back of beyond civilization, there were no golden prunes to be had for forty miles, so I substituted dried apricots for the prunes. The result was delicious, although neither child appreciated it.

Brown the chicken in the oil on all sides. Remove to a plate. Add the onions and cook over medium heat, stirring, for a few minutes. Add the garlic and the tomatoes, bring to a simmer, and add the chicken back in. Simmer covered for an hour or so, then add the cinnamon, salt, pepper and prunes.
Simmer for another half hour or so, covered.
Serve with rice (I used Trader Joe's Brown Basmati, which we love), yogurt and chopped onion. I omitted the chopped onion, and added some toasted slivered almonds instead.